


Guts

by Biofuel



Category: Star Trek
Genre: F/F, F/M, Homosexuality, M/M, Medical Malpractice, Medical Trauma, Mildly Dubious Consent, Obsessive Behavior, Original Character(s), Pansexual Character, Promiscuity, Psychological Trauma, Slow Build, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:36:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biofuel/pseuds/Biofuel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Due to a technical error, Susan Blake was assigned to the Enterprise three months later than scheduled. Now that she's finally secured her place on-board, Blake is finding it difficult to integrate with the tightly-knit crew. As she battles her tarnished reputation for credibility as a xenotoxicologist, demons from her past compromise her professional attitude when she is placed on a special request project with an increasingly intrusive senior medical officer. Keeping a lid on her depressive tendencies is getting harder and harder, but how long will she be able to keep her personal life and career separate?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *Blake is a Pansexually-oriented character with cisgendered male preference. There will be references to non-binary or lesbian encounters. If that's a problem for you, that sucks.

“Cadet Blake, I have called you here today to personally apologize for the scheduling delay, and to notify you that your application to serve on the USS Enterprise has gone through. You will be beamed aboard at 1800 hours tomorrow. I‘d like to thank you for your patience.”  
It was 0700 hours Terran, and that was Andrew Francis.

Admiral Francis was a rather tall man, with a rather prematurely grey crew-cut and an impeccably clean Starfleet regulation uniform. He sat comfortably in his silver desk chair in a way that seemed to ooze authority and self-assurance.  
Susan Blake as a woman that didn't like him very much.  
Cadet Blake preferred to be addressed as Doctor Blake, Doctor Susan Blake if necessary. She had worked way too damn long and way too damn hard to be a Starfleet Cadet, and the only thing that held her from ‘correcting’ the man sitting in front of her was her own career ambition and the knowledge that this man could just as easily ‘lose’ her entry files again as he had the last time.  
For three fucking months.  
Blake wasn't a tall woman, and she wasn't a strong woman. She wasn't particularly intimidating, either. Not be a passing glance, at least. Nobody looked at a five-foot-something pale, freckly, mousy-haired, brown-eyed twenty-something lightweight and trembled in fear unless they had a very, very good reason to.  
Admiral Francis had no such reason.  
0700 hours was way too early for this kind of crap.  
“Thank you very much, sir,” she gritted reluctantly, “But with all due respect, may I ask why my application was so difficult to file?”  
The man smiled in a way that was just patronizing enough to piss her off even more.  
 _Yeah, fuck you too_.  
“Miss Blake,” _Excuse me?! Oh, no way_. “I’m afraid that we at Starfleet have many students trying to come in, every day, to get a position on one of our ships. I’m afraid with all the paperwork we go through on a daily basis, once in awhile someone gets missed. It’s actually rather lucky for you; we only just recently lost several of our finest ships, and the Enterprise herself lost a fair amount of her crew. You are very lucky you weren’t caught up in it.”  
Yes, she was, wasn’t she? Blake was, in fact, very grateful that she hadn’t been onboard during the events that had occurred during the relief flight to Vulcan. However, how in the sam hell was she supposed to feel gratitude towards Starfleet for fudging her papers? They hadn’t known that she would’ve been endangered had she been onboard, nobody had. This was, as far as she was concerned, a matter of sloppy organization and bureaucratic bullshit, and it was unprofessional.  
She wasn’t going to say that, of course. The bureaucracy had a way of getting up and biting you in the ass when it felt motivated enough.  
But good god, did they know how much of her time had been wasted? _Three fucking months._  
“Yes, I was very lucky, sir. Permission to be dismissed?”  
“Permission granted.”  
“Thank you, sir.” _You giant fucking pansy-assed shithead._  
She left the office quickly, shoulders stiff and hunched back. _Oh, thank you sir, thank you so much for losing my papers. Thank you for making me sit around for a month with my thumbs up my ass while you took two fucking weeks leave and left everything with your ditzy, underqualified secretary. Great job, sir. “Miss Blake.” Fuck you with a wooden spoon, ‘sir’, hope the deformation in your cranal cavity still passes as a brain in the med scans._

Blake knew she wasn’t a very nice person. She generally had a constant minimum of three people around to give her the friendly daily reminder that she was a bit of a bitch when she was sober. But she knew how to keep a lid on it when she had to, and she knew how to direct her anger into more productive activities. Like passive-aggressively doing her job so well that most people just left her alone. It wasn’t her job to kiss boo-boos better; it was her job to keep people functioning as well and efficiently as possible as well as she could, and part of that meant prioritizing. One guy might sob like a baby at a bee sting while another tried to walk off Paluvian acid wolf burn, and her job was to figure out which was more important and then sedate the more hysterical of the two without killing them. Sometimes that meant being insensitive, and she was good at it. The stigma generally thinned a crowd pretty quickly.  
Arriving at her dorm, she entered her passcode and walked in.  
And of course her roommate was there.  
Five-foot-nine, honey-toned brown hair, gorgeous blue eyes, and that deep chocolate complexion that made her own pasty freckled arms look like scabbed-over monkey paws.  
Blake might’ve tapped that, if the thought didn’t make her cringe.  
“Hello bitch.”  
That had been the roommate, not her. Her name was Delarose, a security-officer-to-be. It was hard to tell who was talking to who when the speaker misspoke the name of the one they addressed, though. Bitch, Blake, a common mispronunciation.  
Blake continued towards her half of the room.  
“Don’t talk to yourself, It’s weird.”  
Not her best, but she gave herself points for spontaneity. She crouched down to peer under her bed.  
The brunette across the room snorted, folding her arms.  
“If you’re looking for your booze, I flushed it. You’re lucky I didn’t report you.”  
That made her stop. For a second, she seriously considered attempting to kick the woman’s admittedly gorgeous ass.  
 _No way, I have waited too long for my ship placement._  
It was probably for the best; security officers were notoriously good at hand-to-hand, and she was pretty sure officer Delarose had a stun-gun somewhere.

Blake settled on an immature yet well-timed eye-roll.

“Whatever, I don’t have time for this.”  
Dragging the bag the had packed that morning out from under her storage slot, Blake went to leave again.  
“Have a nice night. Hope you have fun.”  
The door slammed shut behind her.  
 _So glad I never tapped that,_ Blake shuddered.  
On her way to her change room locker, Blake mulled over her plans for the night. It was probably for the best that she hadn’t had her vodka to drown in, seeing as she would be on duty for her first day tomorrow afternoon, but that meant she wouldn’t be sleeping that night. A distraction would be needed; after all, why not celebrate her last night on earth?

Third Rock wasn’t a very popular bar, but it was nice enough for someone with limited credits looking to get wasted. Fortunately, quite a few eligible men and women wanted to get wasted.  
Blake wasn’t going to lie to herself, she certainly slept around. It was sleazy and shady and desperate, but it helped her sleep at night. 

Sometimes, she would wonder how she had ever gotten where she was. And then she’d remember, and then she’d do it all again.  
It used to be worse. Way worse. Her old cheap apartment had never been totally vacant, and she had never gone more than a day or so without blacking out, only to wake up with a stranger and the smell of vomit. Now she kept it under, mostly. A few drinks here and there, a few nights out every couple of weeks, and she made sure to run through her systems and med up every week or so to make sure nothing was going on to screw her over.  
Of course, the remainder of her time was spent pouring over her work. It had earned her the title of ‘Obsessive tight-ass’ at more than one occupation. It only got worse once she enrolled at Starfleet. Or better, from her GPA’s standing. Either way, her professional reputation was clean, and her personal life kept her sane. And never the twain shall meet.  
Blake, perched atop a passably clean barstool, glanced tiredly over the occupants of the bar. In the dim light, she knew her eyes were twinkling as slightly different frequencies, and her chest clenched a bit before they made contact with those of a scruffy, yet somewhat arguably good-looking man across the room.  
 _Last night on earth, huh?_  
Might as well be one worth remembering.


	2. Chapter 2

The previous night… Had definitely not been her best.

For one, even though Blake had been (reluctantly) fish-on-land sober, her (now that she had a closer view) rather grungy partner for the night had certainly not been. Odds were, that was probably why he had been such an easy catch in the first place; Blake wasn’t bottom-of-the-bin material, not by far, but she wasn’t exactly playboy bunny picturesque either. More like Librarian-that-maybe-you’d-fantasize-about-if-you-were-in-the-mood-and-she-took-off-her-glasses-and-scrunchy material. Loathe as she was to admit it, alcohol was usually a factor.

Aaaaand grungy bar guy had morning breath.

_Ugh, at least he’s still asleep._

Blake shifted further away from the man on the beige comforter. What was the guy’s name again? Hank, or something? They were at his apartment, of course. Dorm bunking wasn’t something Blake did, usually. She preferred to keep work and life separate, when possible. Speaking of which, it was almost 0400 hours. She was off duty today, but she’d have to get it in gear if she wanted to clean up before her first day onboard.

Not that she particularly wanted to stick around, of course. The morning-after ‘nice-night-goodbye-now’s were the worst.

Rolling off the mattress, the brunette quickly got dressed and untangled her hair in a small mirror she found in the bathroom.

 _Whoa, nice green bathtub_. _That genuine 70’s style? 20’th century classic, right there. ‘Far-out, man’._

But seriously, ew. Antiques were cool, but… no.  She turned from the offending installation to rinse her face in the equally tacky sink. The apartment itself was just- ick. The air smelled… Well, like the way a room belonging to a guy who got blur-vision wasted and did the dirty with random women would be expected to smell. Alcohol and stale food and mildew and other things the brunette woman didn’t really want to think about all that much. There was at least two other sets of lingerie laying around too. Presumably not his.

_Oh, nasty._

Damn, she was getting herself tested for everything first chance she got. Her fingers ran through her limp hair one last time before she figured that it was as good as she was going to get it. Straightening her black coat once more, Blake exited the premises as quietly as possible. It wasn’t usually a major issue, but sometimes the ‘nice-night-goodbye’s escalated into ‘I-had-fun-call-me-we’ll-hook-up-again’s that she really didn’t want anything to do with. One-night flings were her specialty. Sex was a distraction, not a church bells-and-rings special event. She felt disgusting enough using people for sex, she didn’t need the added guilt of stringing them along. At least her bed warmers generally knew what they were signing on for.

_Oh geez is it cold._

Well duh, it was November. Of course she hadn’t planned on being on-planet in November, had she? Oh well. Tucking her hands deeper into her coat pockets, Blake began stepped out the door and began her trek back to the Starfleet Acadamy gym.

_Last morning on earth._

This time tomorrow, she’d be on a gigantic starship full of people. Shared dining area, limited space, practically no ‘wander’ zones…

God, first thing she was going to do would be to take a non-communal shower.

 _On water rations,_ her helpful inner voice chimed in.

ugh.

At least the R, M, and D decks would be worth it. She had never actually been aboard the Enterprise before, but rumor had it the medical development areas were to die for.

_For limited shower time, they had better be._

Finally entering the changerooms of the Starfleet Gymnasium, Blake opened her locker and took out her bag from the day before. It had pretty much all she needed for interstellar travel; Off-duty clothes, (uniforms, she had been told, would be provided after her arrival onboard), toothbrush, hairbrush, datapads (and backups) with all her documented research findings, samples she had extracted from various toxins, two old-fashioned paper notepads, and three of her more durable live potted plants (well sealed under self-containing environment domes), as well as a few miscellaneous self-care items that might not be available onboard, such as her own, self-formulated, homemade patches that would temporarily replace her minor dependency on bottled booze.

(When she was off-duty, of course.)

The things were fairly small and harmless-looking, like a bag of nicotine patches, but they had gotten her smashed before and they probably would again. Cigarettes weren’t very common anymore, except in traditionalist sectors, so they would raise a few eyebrows during inspection. Still, better than announcing that she was toting around the dry, concentrated equivalent of five tanks of Romulan ale.

The small, stupid half of her that still felt stupid about signing up for deep space exploration wanted to take five or six and stick them on right now, but she squashed it down as far as she could and began changing into her gym strip.

Little tempting feelings like that were common; her councilors had told her to resist them, to think about the good things in her life that she could be proud of whenever the shameful feelings surfaced. It was stupid advice, but she followed it whenever she could.

 _I have a life now,_ she reminded herself. _I have a career now_ ; _a future I can work towards. I can walk around by myself, I can support myself._

It felt… odd, to have to learn basic things all over again. When she was younger, she had been fairly shy. Years spent in home school and long summers spent off-planet with her uncle hadn’t helped improve her social skills much. She had always been reluctant to do things on her own; her first trip on a shuttle by herself had been terrifying. She had spent the whole trip wringing her hands in the edge of her shirt, double-checking and triple-checking for directions and structures she recognized. After a few times, she had learned to relax. Once she had the hang of it, it wasn’t so bad. Tentatively, she had begun to explore things in her own time. Little streets off-route, parks and museums and cafes that branched off the lines of her road map. By the time she was fourteen, it was all her parents could do to keep their wiry, wide-eyed teenage daughter in the house, much less in the same town. Until later, when she was reminded that her own little naive world wasn’t all there was in life; that sometimes what you can’t see can still see you.

That was when everything became big and scary again.

Now fully dressed in a pair of knee-length gym shorts and a concealing grey long-sleeved shirt, hair in a tail, Blake left the lockers and made her way over to the climbing ropes. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a few cadets around her own age glaring at her. It made her feel awkward and exposed, but she was long past the times when she would’ve run off to hide. This was her gym too, and there was no rules that said students with bad reputations couldn’t use public space. That didn’t stop her skin from prickling a little from the unwanted attention, though.

Stopping between two dangling ropes, the brunette rolled up her sleeves and tucked in her shirt. She was wearing a sports bra and all, but it still felt incredibly vulnerable to expose her stomach and back to a whole gym full of people, regardless to whether or not any of them were even looking. After a few basic stretches to avoid hurting herself, she reached her arms over her head. In one symmetrical movement Blake wrapped each forearm around a rope and gripped it tightly in her fists. Tensing her abdomen, she heaved upwards to balance herself upside-down between the ‘V’d handles. When she was little, there had been a park by her dad’s shop with a big old-fashioned swing set. Too young to help with her father’s welding business at the time, she had played for hours waiting for him to get off work. She had never really gotten the hang of rocking herself back and forth, however, so she had tried climbing up the chains like she had seen the bigger kids do. She almost immediately fell off and sprained her ankle. When it had healed, she had gone back to the park and learned how to do tricks with a friend who had taken classes for the same sort of thing. She could twirl like a yo-yo for about a foot or so up and down, she could pull herself into front-flips and back-flops, and she could pull herself to the top and ‘stand’ on the supporting bar like a sleeping bat. It took weeks of practice and it wasn’t very acrobatic or graceful, but it was fun. When she was older, that was where she went when she was bored or frustrated, to blow off some steam. Synthetic-fiber climbing equipment took some getting used to, but it had the same soothing effect that it had when she lived at home. She couldn’t do anything pretty; mostly she just swung around a bit and held positions, but it was surprisingly therapeutic. She wasn’t super-fit, and she certainly wouldn’t win a race or a contest if physical fitness was the divider, but she had a small bubble of pride in her own coordination. It was something that the other kids had watched her do and laughed, asked how she did it, begged to be taught how. A child’s game. (That, and it was a killer workout on her abs and biceps now.) The thought made her smile.

After a moment longer, she came down for a break. There was only so long her arms and shins could support her between strings, and rope burn was a bitch. (Plus, it was more than a little awkward to be the only one in the room on the ropes.)

Actually, there was no guarantee of another gym day like this one in the foreseeable future. Maybe she should quit now, take a minute in the steam room before running it all off with a old shower? God, that sounded amazing. Yeah, she’d do that. Except… there was a rather large group of students already in the steam room. Glancing at her. Talking. She didn’t need to hear what they were saying to know that it was probably not very complimentary, but if she tilted her head just so to the right, she could barely make out the words.

“-a slut. Oh my god, that is so gross.”

“No way! Just to pass the class? Oh, ew, isn’t he like 60?”

“Aw, he could be her Dad!”

“I know!”

_Oh._

Maybe no sauna this time.

There was a squeezing sensation in her throat, like she was going to throw up her own trachea or something. Wow, there was some lovely imagery.

Yeah, maybe she’d just skip right to the cold shower. Blake liked cold showers. Not turning the water cold and jumping right in, she wasn’t totally insane, but burning hot showers that quickly descended in temperature until room temperature felt like coming into a warm house after playing in the snow. She hadn’t turned it down that far yet, though. Right now the dial was settled at a comfortable lukewarm temperature just above body heat.

She faced the corner; it was a communal shower, and she didn’t really mind that, but she hated showing off her stomach and knowing that people would ask about surgical scars if they saw them made her want to curl up and disappear. There were a few small ones on her lower back and her calves as well, but she liked to pretend they didn’t exist, even though the water felt a little bit different as it dribbled over them.

She felt gross and pathetic, and just a little bit proud for not running away in humiliation.

_Oh, stop feeling so sorry. Grow up and get over yourself.._

Angrily, she yanked the knob to the coldest setting and scrubbed vigorously at her scalp, scraping out the last few day’s oil and grime.

Maybe she’d get some seafood for dinner. Last on-earth meal and all. Rumor had it seafood tasted terrible replicated.

Damn, this was really happening, wasn’t it? She was actually doing this. She had signed up for this, and it was happening. In five minutes, she was due aboard the USS Enterprise, where she would be working for the rest of her foreseeable career.

She was 27 damned years old; why the hell did she feel like a nervous schoolgirl?

Bag slung over her shoulder and datapad in hand, Blake shivered anxiously. Was this the right choice? They’d be in warp drive within an hour of her arrival; there was no going back after that. Now, standing beside her holopad, the immense weight of what she was about to do was finally sinking in.

 _This will work out_ , she told herself. Positive thinking, right? Remember her therapy sessions; breathe evenly, focus, think positive, don’t stress?

_You’re going to meet some new people, you’re going to have assignments, you’re going to have a new routine. New things to discover, new medicines to make. You can help people. You can be useful._

“Black, Susan.”

She snapped to attention.“Blake, sir,” she corrected, “Filing error. I was told that it was taken care of. I apologize.”

“Blake, then. At ease, doctor.”

She relaxed her posture, lowering her shoulders slightly, but didn’t loosen completely. She was being addressed by an older man around her own height, blue-eyed and brown-haired, with enough stars and badges on his uniform to keep her in line even on one of her worst days. He was, by the look of it, a fair few years older than she was. Normally Blake didn’t get on well with authority figures, but he had the sort of kind, no-shit feel about him that told her that while he took his job seriously, he was not without sympathy to his officers. It was reassuring knowledge. Knowing that someone had integrity helped in the process of accepting them as a leader, she found. Which was good, because she didn’t exactly have any choice in the matter. 

“You may address me as Commander Pike,” he allowed. “I am in charge of mediating the Enterprise on behalf of the Federation. Normally I would not be the one in charge of sending you off, but it seemed appropriate after the clusterfuck your assignment papers went through. The issue is inexcusable and is being investigated.” 

Well, that felt satisfying. 

“You will be contacted in four days to confirm that things are going well,” he continued, “should there be any major issues arise before that time, please contact the security regulation moniter whose contacts are in your integration files, or voice your concerns to Bridge Captain James T. Kirk. Any questions?”

_ Yes actually, as a matter of fact. What the hell am I doing?  _

“No, sir.” 

He smiled, releasing a bit of his rank authority in a show of support. “Knock ‘em dead.” 

Next thing she knew, Blake had been directed to the centre of her holopad and instructed to stand very, very still. 

“If you move around,” the woman at the control station warned, “You’ll either lose some parts on the way up, or disintegrate.”

Yes. Very reassuring. Boom, instant statue. 

“Good luck, miss.” 

She didn't nod, and white lights erupted in front of her eyes.

 


End file.
